No girls allowed: reading is a boys-only club in Australian schools

This week, US author Shannon Hale wrote on her blog about visiting an unidentified school where only girls were permitted to leave class to attend her talks, because of the belief that "boys won't like books with female protagonist".

"Let's be clear: I do not talk about 'girl' stuff. I do not talk about body parts. I do not do a 'Your Menstrual Cycle and You!' presentation," wrote Hale, the author of Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters.

"But because I'm a woman, because some of my books have pictures of girls on the cover, because some of my books have 'princess' in the title, I'm stamped as 'for girls only.'

"However, the male writers who have boys on their covers speak to the entire school."

Australian writer Will Kostakis, whose first book Loathing Lola was a young adult novel with a female leading character, reveals to ninemsn that Hale's problem isn't limited to American schools:

My first novel Loathing Lola has a female protagonist. During a visit to an all-boys school, I was advised not to speak about the book specifically (it had a "girly" cover "no boy would read on the bus without embarrassment").

Forget I wrote the novel as a teenager, when I went to an all-boys school. I was told it wouldn't interest the students. The result was a 50-minute talk about writing where I couldn't talk about my own writing for fear of putting them off.

A "girly" cover "no boy would read"

Visiting schools is a big part of being an Australian young-adult author. It's paid work, for one, which is important when you make less than $1.80 per copy sold and you like extravagant things like… eating dinner.

School visits also allow us to introduce ourselves and our work to potential readers. It's a necessity.

Shannon Hale's experiences in America echo my experiences of what sometimes happens here. As a speaker, I'm often asked to recommend other local speakers. I tell them about Claire Zorn and her incredible Aussie dystopian novel, The Sky So Heavy. I tell them how Simmone Howell can distil the entire teenage experience into a single sentence.

And if it's an all-boys school, I usually get the same response: "Do you know any male authors?"Simmone and Claire are engaging speakers with incredible books... and I'm saying this as a guy. Year after year, the best young-adult texts I read are by Australian women. Awards shortlists back this up.

Why then, do we hesitate to have women speak to boys?

"If J.K. Rowling had instead written Hermione Granger and the Philosopher's Stone, would that really have lessened the magic of Hogwarts for boy readers?"

Librarians and English staff play a huge role in getting books into the hands of young people, kick-starting what will hopefully become lifelong passions for reading. Some still believe that female authorship can be a barrier.

J. K. Rowling was encouraged by her publisher to write as J. K. and not Joanne, because of an old-world fear boys wouldn't want to read a book written by a woman. She doesn't even have a middle name.

We should challenge the myth that a book by J. K. appeals more to boys than the same book by Joanne. Just as we should challenge the myth that boys aren't interested in reading books that aren't about them. If Rowling had instead written Hermione Granger and the Philosopher's Stone, would that really have lessened the magic of Hogwarts for boy readers?

It's baffling — we should want boys to read about girls, to broaden their horizons. The more diverse characters — I'm talking gender, sexuality, race, religion — young readers are exposed to, the more they empathise. We're selling teenagers short. They have the ability to read about characters who don't look like themselves, heck, they even like it.

In my latest, The First Third, the main character's best friend Sticks is gay. Before speaking at an all-girls school, I was advised not to discuss his sexuality with a group of Year 10s who had read the novel. I wasn't comfortable with this, but when your income relies on school visits (see: dinner), you don't rock the boat. I didn't address his sexuality. When I asked their favourite part, one student brought up the scene where Sticks spoke about losing his virginity — a very "gay" scene. There was a chorus of approval from the class. One girl said it reminded her of her own gay friend. She now felt she understood him better.

Funny, that.

Will Kostakis is a 25-year-old Australian author. The First Third is his take on growing up in a small but potent Greek family, and won the State Library of Victoria Gold Inky, and was nominated for the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Award.